OREANDA-NEWS. March 18, 2010. The overview (listing) will include University programmes in two areas – joint projects with national employers and programmes focusing on interaction with international universities.

The project goal is to show additional opportunities for applied knowledge created by the Ukrainian universities for their students. First of all the listing gives a possibility for future and current university entrants to make an informed choice of higher education institution and the major subject and create a “road map” at the very beginning of the studying process. For universities it gives a possibility to get information about best practices and even adopt the practice. 

In particular, programmes on cooperation with Ukrainian employers show how any given educational institution is integrated in the real sector of economy and whether it meets the labour market requirements. In their turn, international programmes demonstrate how much the university, the curricula and students are involved in the global education space.

 “Today educational institutions start understanding the value of practical knowledge, which can help their students quickly find a job”, said Yekaterina Glazkova, an acting Editor-in-Chief of Focus News Magazine. “Joint projects with potential employers are in place at most leading national universities, almost in every region. Our objective is to communicate the programmes to the entrants, their parents and help them make a choice of the university”.

In addition, within the framework of the project we will announce the names of educators who are trend-setters of ideas in the area of education.

Natalia Yemchenko, Director of Public Relations and Communications at SCM, said about the new project: “The listing we compiled pursues three objectives: firstly, it is aimed to help university entrants and their parents make an informed choice of the university. Secondly, it is aimed to give a “hint” to employers, who will see which universities are training the best professionals they need and what level of training they offer. It might help the employers to start working with the universities, which support training of the professions they need. And, finally, the third objective is to extend the Ukrainian expertise for all universities, to give them an opportunity to see themselves through the eyes of others and understand their strengths and weaknesses, to find out what programmes are used by their colleagues in the area of education and, thus, to set own priorities and areas for further development”.

 “The listing of programmes and projects is not a summary of the results. On the contrary, it is a sort of “reference point”. I believe in 5 years the number of similar projects will be several times more while successful career of graduates will support their practical value”, added Natalia Yemchenko. “Despite the fact that information collection process in March-April was not an easy one we are very thankful to the universities, which agreed to our offer to participate in the listing”.

The data obtained from the Discussion Club project implemented by SCM in 2009 and the results of the Focus Magazine “Top Prestigious Industries and Professions” Ranking were used to analyze the university curricula. The Organizing Committee used the data to select universities of the third and fourth level of accreditation training specialists in the area of agriculture, business/economy, finances and banking, information technologies (IT), law, metal industry and architecture/construction.

It is important to note that this year the Magazine is not going to assess the curricula but will present the brightest university projects in different regions. There is a possibility for the project to be transformed into ranking in the future.

The overview of the best programmes and projects of Ukrainian universities will be published by Focus News Magazine in March 2010.